10 Ways to Measure Social Customer Service

What are the ten best ways of measuring social customer service. We asked three experts - and here's what they said.

What are the ten best ways of measuring social customer service? We asked three experts – and here’s what they said.

Ever since we decided it was a cost-centre, rather than an asset to be exploited, customer service has been awash with metrics. It is one of the most tightly measured departments in any large brand – with phone-calls timed to the second and response times scrutinised daily. Blending this with social media, where metrics are frequently absent or meaningless, is therefore not any easy task.

Never one to be daunted, I’ve asked a team of genuine social customer service pioneers to join me for an exploration of social customer service metrics. You can listen to it here. It takes place at 3pm UK time this Thurs – but if you’re reading this after the event, you can also listen again.

In the meantime, I thought I’d share our initial notes on the theme of ’10 Ways to Measure Social Customer Service’ – as there are some really useful tasters to whet your appetite, or anger you, depending on your beliefs. I’d welcome your input on this list here, or via questions during the webinar.

Measuring impact

Number and percentage of posts responded to – Often used as a headline to batter companies (‘only x% of Facebook questions responded to’)

In this article

Luke helps brands to use social and digital media more effectively. With over 16 years of hands-on experience, his client list includes Burger King, VISA, British Airways and The Daily Telegraph. He is the founder of Our Social Times and Managing Director of OST Marketing, the award-winning agency.

I’ve always treated “response” time and “solution” time differently, but then I work primarily in financial services, where questions are usually tied to money and access to it. Responding as quickly as possible is important to let the customer know you’ve heard them, you’re sorry, and you’re working on the solution. That buys a little time to actually dig into it and find the solution. So if you’re my customer, I address your needs a little more like 3, 1, 2 than 1, 2, 3 as you list them.